Conventionally, there has been an air conditioner disposed with a unit casing where a centrifugal fan that includes impellers and scroll casings housing the impellers and a heat exchanger are partitioned by a partition member into a heat exchanger chamber and a fan chamber, with the centrifugal fan that includes the impellers and the scroll casings housing the impellers being disposed inside the fan chamber and the heat exchanger being disposed inside the heat exchanger chamber so as to face scroll blowout openings in the scroll casings.
As one example of such an air conditioner, there is a ceiling-hung type air conditioner. A ceiling-hung type air conditioner is mainly disposed with a unit casing capable of being hung from a ceiling, a centrifugal fan that sucks air into the unit casing via a unit suction opening and blows out air from a unit blowout opening, and a heat exchanger.
The unit suction opening is formed in the bottom surface of the unit casing, and the unit blowout opening is formed in the front surface of the unit casing. Further, a partition member comprising a plate-like member that is long from side to side and disposed upright is disposed in the unit casing to partition the space inside the unit casing into a fan chamber at the rear surface side that is communicated with the unit suction opening and a heat exchanger chamber at the front surface side that is communicated with the unit blowout opening. More specifically, the partition member includes a flat plate section that runs parallel to the front surface and the rear surface of the unit casing (i.e., orthogonal to the side surfaces of the unit casing). Communication openings that allow the fan chamber and the heat exchanger chamber to be communicated are formed in the flat plate section.
The centrifugal fan is disposed inside the fan chamber and mainly includes impellers, scroll casings housing the impellers, and a motor that drives the impellers to rotate. The impellers are, for example, double suction type sirocco fan rotors whose rotational axis is disposed facing the sides of the unit casing. The scroll casings include scroll body sections, which include scroll suction openings that open in the direction of the rotational axis of the impellers, and cylindrical scroll outlet sections, which include scroll blowout openings formed so as to blow out air in a direction intersecting the scroll suction openings and disposed so as to correspond to the communication openings in the partition member. In such an air conditioner, oftentimes the impellers and the scroll casings are disposed plurally juxtaposed in the rotational axis direction—that is, facing the sides of the unit casing—and in this case, the plural impellers are collectively driven to rotate by a single motor.
The heat exchanger is disposed inside the heat exchanger chamber so as to face the scroll blowout openings—and more specifically, so as to face substantially the entire flat plate section of the partition member—and is a device for cooling and heating air whose pressure has been boosted by the centrifugal fan inside the fan chamber and which has been blown out into the heat exchanger chamber from the scroll blowout openings in the scroll casings.
In such an air conditioner, when the centrifugal fan is actuated, air is sucked into the fan chamber of the unit casing via the unit suction opening, and the air that has been sucked into the fan chamber is sucked into the scroll casings through the scroll suction openings and is blown out from the inner peripheral sides to the outer peripheral sides of the impellers. The air that has been blown out to the outer peripheral sides of the impellers and whose pressure has been boosted is blown out into the heat exchanger chamber from the scroll blowout openings disposed so as to correspond to the communication openings in the partition member. Then, the air that has been blown out into the heat exchanger chamber from the scroll blowout openings is cooled or heated as a result of heat exchange being performed with refrigerant flowing inside a heat transfer tube of the heat exchanger and is blown out into the room from the unit blowout opening (e.g., see Japanese Patent JP-A No. 2002-106945).
However, in the above-described conventional air conditioner, whereas the heat exchanger faces substantially the entire flat plate section of the partition member, the communication openings in the flat plate section—that is, the scroll blowout openings in the scroll casings—are only disposed partially in the flat plate section of the partition member, so problems occur in which the air blown out into the heat exchanger chamber from the scroll blowout openings passes through the heat exchanger without being diffused, nonuniformity in the flow of air passing through the heat exchanger occurs, ventilation resistance in the heat exchanger increases, and blowing capability and heat exchange capability are reduced. Particularly in the case of a configuration where impellers and scroll casings are disposed plurally juxtaposed as in the above-described conventional air conditioner, this problem occurs in each scroll blowout opening.
With respect to this, an air conditioner disposed with scroll casings where the size of the scroll outlet sections in the direction of the rotational axis of the impellers is enlarged has been proposed (see Japanese Patent JP-A No. 5-99444).